Strings of medicine sachets comprise sachets which are connected to one another to form a series, each sachet being filled with one or more medicines and each sachet being a daily dose or a dose of the medicines to be taken at a particular time. Such strings are wound up for each patient or group of patients. Packaging is carried out as much as possible in an automated manner and, starting from an endless string or precut string sections, the strings are, if desired, shortened to form string sections after the medicines have been packaged in the strings or string sections and then have to be wound up in order to be able to handle and transport them in a simple manner.
In addition, it is necessary to separate the string sections obtained during packaging into string sections which, upon inspection, have been found to be perfect and string sections which still have to undergo further treatments, such as a further inspection of the medicines and/or a modification thereof.
Until now, the operation of winding up the string sections and separating the reels obtained according to the different diameters has mainly been carried by hand. It is known to wind up a string section by means of a rotating motor provided with a shaft having a slot. Next, an indication of any suitable kind was provided as to whether the packaging had to be further examined. As winding is a relatively simple task and the measures regarding a further inspection are of a greater responsibility, various people were employed in the prior art which further complicated the process.
GB 1,382,136 discloses a winding device for winding textile materials. Therein, a strip of textile material is introduced by hand into the slot of a winding shaft and is subsequently wound onto the latter by means of rotation.
This device is unsuitable for the automatic winding of large numbers of successive string sections which are separated from one another.